Trump Victory Tour Set as Cabinet Comes Together

President-elect Donald J. Trump named two new cabinet picks, Representative Tom Price of Georgia, for health and human services, and Elaine Chao, a former labor secretary and the wife of Senator Mitch McConnell, to head the Transportation Department. Meanwhile, ascendant conservatives have blocked women from military draft registration.

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Tourists posed in the lobby of Trump Tower on Tuesday.CreditSam Hodgson for The New York Times

Victory tour to kick off Thursday: Hello, Cincinnati!

President-elect Trump plans to begin a victory lap on Thursday, returning to Cincinnati for a postelection rally. The city was the site of some of his biggest rallies as a candidate, with supporters turning out by the thousands for a mid-October event at the U.S. Bank Arena.

The trip Thursday will kick off what the transition is calling a “thank you” tour in which Mr. Trump plans to give credit for his surprise victory to supporters in critical swing states. He is tentatively scheduled to make a second stop Saturday in Des Moines.

Lighters up!

But first, dinner at Jean-Georges.

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Reince Priebus, President-elect Donald J. Trump and Mitt Romney dined at Jean-Georges in Manhattan on Tuesday.CreditSam Hodgson for The New York Times

Mr. Trump and Mitt Romney — who called Mr. Trump a “phony” and a “fraud” during the Republican primaries — sat down for a four-course meal Tuesday night at Jean-Georges, a three-star Michelin restaurant at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan.

Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, emerged several hours later to heap compliments on the president-elect, who has bristled privately that Mr. Romney never apologized for insulting him during the race.

On Tuesday, there was no apology, but Mr. Romney said he had been impressed by Mr. Trump’s victory speech on election night, his transition effort, and his personnel decisions.

“He did something I tried to do and was unsuccessful in accomplishing: He won the general election,” Mr. Romney told reporters. “He continues with a message of inclusion and bringing people together, and his vision is something which obviously connected with the American people in a very powerful way.”

He said Mr. Trump’s conduct since winning the election gives him “increasing hope that President-elect Trump is the very man who can lead us to that better future.”

Mr. Romney is said to be under consideration for secretary of state.

The White House displays its holiday finery.

Washington’s most prominent home threw open its doors Tuesday, unveiling a vast and sparkling collection of Christmas trees, lights, ornaments and more. Take a peek at this year’s gingerbread house:

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A gingerbread version of the White House in the State Dining Room.CreditAl Drago/The New York Times

‘Build that wall.’

An advocacy group that favors strict limits on immigration called on President-elect Trump on Tuesday to erect a physical barrier on the United States-Mexico border, end funding to cities that shield undocumented immigrants from deportation, and deny citizenship to children born of undocumented parents.

In other words, keep his campaign promises.

The 22-page proposal by the Federation for American Immigration Reform also calls for expanding the use of immigration detention facilities; punishing countries that refuse to take back criminals who the United States is trying to deport; and build a viable entry-exit system to track people who overstay their visas.

Daniel Stein, the group’s president, said it would present the document to the Trump transition team no later than Wednesday.

Is Trump bolstering his infrastructure push?

President-elect Trump’s decision to tap Ms. Chao to be his secretary of transportation could prove to be a deviously shrewd mobilization of domesticity as he pushes to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild the nation’s highways, bridges, airports and transit systems.

The biggest opposition to the plan could come from Republicans, mindful of rising budget deficits and skeptical of the economic benefits of federal jobs programs. Enter Ms. Chao, the wife of the Senate majority leader. As secretary of transportation, she would lead the infrastructure push, possibly against her husband.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, took note.

Cabinet handicapping, high school edition.

If the nomination process were high school, Ms. Chao would probably win most likely to succeed. She has already been lauded by Democrats like Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and, of course, Republicans, including her biggest fan, Mr. McConnell.

“I’ve heard rumors that should be an outstanding appointment announced later today,” Mr. McConnell said Tuesday, noting that reporters had immediately asked if he planned to recuse himself from voting for his wife. “Let me be quite clear,” he said, “I will not be recusing myself. I think it was an outstanding choice.”

History does have a way of repeating itself. When Senator Bob Dole, Republican of Kansas, was the majority leader, his wife, Elizabeth, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to head up the Transportation Department. At her confirmation hearings, Mr. Dole said his only regret was that he had “only one wife to give for his country’s infrastructure.”

Conservative ascendancy: women-and-the-draft edition.

Mr. Trump may be nearly two months from the White House, but conservatives seem emboldened already: After a fierce policy debate, they yanked a requirement that young women register for the draft out of the annual defense policy bill.

The United States has not used the draft since 1973 and the Vietnam War. The Senate, under the leadership of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, passed a bill this year that would have compelled women turning 18 on or after Jan. 1, 2018, to register for Selective Service, as men must do, a move that reflected the expanding role of women in the armed services.

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The lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan was prepared for a steady stream of visitors to meet with the president-elect on Monday.CreditSam Hodgson for The New York Times

While most Republican senators — including Mr. McConnell and the women on the Armed Services Committee — agreed with the move, it was rejected in the House version of the bill, after attack from some of Congress’s most conservative members. The members of the House committee “felt strongly” that the provision not be in the final bill that Congress is expected to consider next month, Mr. McCain said Tuesday, so it was removed.

Meanwhile, back at the popular vote.

Hillary Clinton’s popular vote lead over Mr. Trump swelled again Tuesday with a new tranche of votes from heavily Democratic Prince George’s County, Md.; it now stands at 2,358,925, or 1.8 percentage points.

The search for a secretary of state continues.

On Monday, it was David H. Petraeus. On Tuesday night, it will be Mitt Romney.

But don’t forget Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who met with Mr. Trump on Tuesday afternoon in Trump Tower.

Mr. Corker is tempering expectations, noting that the competition is tough.

“The secretary of state’s role is so important to a president,” he told reporters. “He needs to choose someone that he’s very comfortable with, and he knows that there’s going to be no daylight between him and them. He needs to know that the secretary of state is someone who speaks fully for the president.”

Intolerance on the upswing?

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project opened an online survey to elementary and secondary school educators in the days after the November elections. The response, from more than 10,000 teachers, counselors, administrators and others who work in schools, may have been self-selective, but the results are sobering.

Nine out of 10 educators said they had seen a negative impact on students’ mood and behavior after the election.

Four in 10 have heard derogatory language directed at students of color, Muslims, immigrants and people based on gender or sexual orientation.

Moving right along ...

The president-elect may still be fuming over unfounded allegations of massive voter fraud, especially in California, but his allies in Congress are ready to move on.

“Secretary Clinton conceded the election, and it appears to me she thinks the election’s over,” Mr. McConnell told reporters on Tuesday. “The American people think the election’s over, and I think the election’s over. So it’s an interesting discussion, but it strikes me as totally irrelevant. Time to move on.”

On the House side of the Capitol, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, echoed the sentiment.

“I think the elections came out just fine,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday, adding, “I think now’s the time to govern.”

The cabinet comes together.

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Representative Tom Price of Georgia, Mr. Trump’s choice for secretary of health and human services, left Trump Tower this month.CreditHilary Swift for The New York Times

Beyond Ms. Chao, Mr. Trump on Tuesday formally tapped Representative Tom Price of Georgia, an orthopedic surgeon who has been a fervent opponent of the Affordable Care Act, to be his secretary of health and human services.

Steven Mnuchin, a hedge fund financier who headed Mr. Trump’s campaign finance committee, is expected to be named Treasury secretary as soon as Wednesday.

Representative Lou Barletta, a Pennsylvania Republican who made his name as the anti-immigration mayor of Hazleton, emerged from Trump Tower Tuesday afternoon to say he is discussing the post of labor secretary with the president-elect.

And word is that Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington is getting a “hard look” as secretary of the interior.

Mr. Price, who has focused much of his work in Congress on trying to insulate physicians from the dictates and price controls of agencies that would be under his control if he is confirmed, responded on Tuesday:

“There is much work to be done to ensure we have a health care system that works for patients, families and doctors; that leads the world in the cure and prevention of illness; and that is based on sensible rules to protect the well-being of the country while embracing its innovative spirit.”

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, the incoming minority leader, was not happy:

“Congressman Price has proven to be far out of the mainstream of what Americans want when it comes to Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood. Thanks to those three programs, millions of American seniors, families, people with disabilities and women have access to quality, affordable health care. Nominating Congressman Price to be the H.H.S. secretary is akin to asking the fox to guard the hen house.”

But because Senate Democrats gutted the filibuster rule for presidential appointees, there may be little opponents can do to stop Mr. Price’s confirmation.

Communiqués, in the form of tweets, on flag burning and citizenship.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday used one Twitter post to make two proposals the Supreme Court has long since ruled unconstitutional: barring protesters from burning the American flag and stripping people of their American citizenship.

Even if Mr. Trump could persuade Congress to enact a criminal statute making such a shift in the balance between government power and individual rights, anyone convicted and sentenced under it could point to clear Supreme Court precedents to make the case that the new law violated the Constitution.

In a landmark 1989 case, Texas v. Johnson, the Supreme Court struck down criminal laws banning flag burning, ruling that the act was a form of political expression protected by the First Amendment. And in a 1967 case, Afroyim v. Rusk, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not allow the government to take away Americans’ citizenship against their will.